October 2017 was second warmest on record in Worcester

Wednesday

Nov 1, 2017 at 4:15 PMNov 2, 2017 at 3:47 PM

Bill Fortier Correspondent

Last month was the warmest October in 117 years, and the proof of that is easy to see.

Still-growing lawns need to be mowed, some gardens still have pepper-laden plants that have been untouched by frost, and cherry tomatoes were still turning red Sunday on a second-floor deck of a home in the Burncoat area of Worcester.

Figures compiled by the National Weather Service in Taunton show October 2017, with a mean average temperature of 58 degrees, was the second warmest October on record. The mildest October occurred in 1900, when the average temperature was 60.1 degrees. October 1920 comes in third, with an average temperature of 57 degrees.

October’s mean temperature was 8 degrees warmer than the average of 50 degrees, according National Weather Service meteorologist William Simpson. The mean temperature is determined by combining a day’s high and low temperature and dividing by two.

“Eight degrees above average in Worcester,” Mr. Simpson said with a note of surprise in his voice. “That’s something.”

The low temperature for last month at Worcester Regional Airport was 35 degrees, which makes the month the first October since 2004 that didn’t see a low temperature of 32 degrees or lower.

Records kept in 1900 were in a lower section of Worcester. The location is thought by NWS meteorologists to be in the Shrewsbury Street section of the city. Worcester Regional Airport, where weather records have been kept since 1948, is at an elevation of 1,009 feet and the temperature there is routinely 2 or 3 degrees cooler than most locations in the city.

Mr. Simpson said it’s a good idea to keep that in mind when comparing the temperatures in October 1900 and October 2017.

“It’s like comparing apples and oranges,” Mr. Simpson.

“That’s a very good point,” said David H. Dombek, senior meteorologist for AccuWeather.com.

Mr. Simpson and Mr. Dombek said October saw a fall weather pattern that featured a high-pressure ridge along the East Coast, and that pumped warm air into Central Massachusetts.

“The ridge in October was stronger than the ridge we had all summer,” Mr. Dombek said. “You had a pattern that kept repeating itself: It would cool off for a day or two, but there was no extended cool weather.”

Mr. Dombek said the warmth played a major role in the two big storms that dropped more than 8 inches of rain in Central Massachusetts in the past 10 days.

“You had a lot of warm air that held a lot of moisture, and the ocean temperatures are a little higher than average, and that all contributed to the amount of rain you got,” he said.

Mr. Simpson said the temperature on Friday could soar to 75 degrees before cooler air drops the high temperatures into the mid-50s during the weekend.

The Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center is forecasting a milder-than-average November, Mr. Simpson said. CPC long-range forecasts also call for a milder-than-average December and January, he added.

Mr. Dombek agreed that there is a good chance that November will be milder than average.

“Certainly the odds favor that, more so than colder than average. But the chances of it being 8 degrees above average for two months in a row are very, very slim,” he said.

Still, while the overall prediction for November is for above-average temperatures, computer models Wednesday morning showed a large coastal storm next Wednesday and Thursday that could bring the area another major storm. One of the American computer models forecasters use in issuing their forecasts indicated the Worcester area could get some snow, while the main European model says it will rain here and possibly snow in the northern New England mountains.

“That storm could be a figment of computer models' imagination,” Mr. Simpson said, adding that future computer models might not show the storm.

“It could be science fiction," Mr. Dombek said of what some forecasters call a fantasy storm.

“But it’s one of those wild cards that are hard to factor in when making forecasts," Mr. Dombek noted. “They can throw predictions out of whack. Overall, we believe there will be a back-and-forth to the temperatures, with some bouts of precipitation.”